Domino's Pizza chain has a branch in a nondescript red brick building on Columbia Pike in Washington's Arlington Village. Judging by Google, on Monday (January 12), in the early afternoon, ten times more pizzas were ordered there than usual. Other nearby pizzerias also had two or three times as much business.
A kilometer or so down the street is the Pentagon, the famous headquarters building of the Ministry of Defense. The site pizzint.watch tracks orders from nearby pizzerias, feeding a popular theory - when there are a lot of orders in that area, it means that Pentagon employees don't have time to go out for lunch or work late. And that means something is cooking.
This crazy theory has reportedly been confirmed multiple times, most recently before the US military invaded Caracas and kidnapped President Nicolás Maduro. Now, pizza-theory devotees guess, something will happen around Greenland, around Cuba... but, it seems, most likely around Iran.
Will Donald Trump lash out at Tehran amid three weeks of protests in Iran and try to topple the hard-line Shia regime, which appears to be swaying more than ever? And if he tries, will he succeed?
PRINCE WITHOUT A THRONE
What began at the end of last year in Tehran's central bazaar as a protest over the collapse of the local currency and economic hardship quickly turned into mass demonstrations and riots. Observers say that the protests were semi-organized at the invitation of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi (65).
Pahlavi has gained some support on the streets across Iran, although there is every chance that he will have a stronger foothold in the diaspora. The son of the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was studying to be a military pilot in the USA when his father was purged in the 1979 Islamic revolution. He has not been to Iran since then.
Aware that the majority of Iranians will hardly support the monarchy, Pahlavi offers himself as a kind of manager in the democratic transition. "On the day when Iranians go to the polls to decide on their future, my mission will be fulfilled and my political role will be over," he told Deutsche Welle a few years ago.
But the road to get there could be long. The regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - whose allies and puppets in the region have been beaten or weakened, such as Bashar al-Assad, Hezbollah and Hamas - is responding to the protests as usual. The Internet has been cut off, this time frighteningly precisely: while the public is completely cut off, the state leadership and certain state and pro-state media are not. They have access to, say, Telegram to spread tightly controlled content. Scarce information and blurry images arrive in the world from the country. They show masses of people, often young men with their faces hidden, burning vehicles and barricades, smoke. Slogans against the regime are heard.
Bursts are also heard. One sees bodies covered in black sheets and crowded, busy hospitals. The religious regime stifles the protest in blood, which has succeeded dozens of times before. As this issue of "Vremen" goes to press, groups of activists and Iranians in exile claim that more than 600 people have been killed in the streets, and some estimates say thousands. According to those sources, which no one can verify, about ten thousand people were arrested.
EVS "TRAITORS" I "TERRORISTS"
On Monday, the streets of Tehran were calm after the evening call to prayer. That's when the danger of bullets and arrest is greatest. Citizens were warned by state television to make sure that their children do not go outside. On the same day, supporters of the regime gathered shouting slogans against the United States. The authorities claim that "everything is under control".
"This Iranian state is deeply entrenched and in constant crisis mode," said Arshin Adib-Moghadam from the Center for Iranian Studies in London. "Protests alone will not bring about system change. Serious insiders of Iran know that most of what we see today is a political mirage, far removed from the reality on the ground."
Paradoxically, this kind of analysis of the regime's brutality works in the hands of that regime - the demonstrators cannot bring us down alone because the people do not want them, so they are waiting for help from outside. Demonstrators were declared "terrorists" working for the US and Israel. "That's why the protests became violent and bloody, to give the American president an excuse to intervene," Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Al Jazeera.
TRUMP ALLEGEDLY READY
Donald Trump made a show of force against Iran last year by ending the so-called Twelve Day War between Iran and Israel. This time he threatened the mullah regime that he would intervene if they "kill the people". "We are locked and loaded", he wrote on his social network - stuck like guns.
"The military is monitoring the situation and we are considering some very strong options," he told reporters aboard Air Force One. Trump fires off cryptic messages multiple times a day and no one knows when to take them seriously. When asked about Iran's announced "revenge" in case of US attacks, he says: "If they do that, we will hit them like no one else."
Trump has announced punitive tariffs of 25 percent for everyone who "does business" with Iran, but it is not yet official. Also, he said that "Iran wants to negotiate" which, as it is assumed, came from an intermediary from Oman, but was not confirmed in Tehran.
A military coup is easy to announce, but the question is what it would bring, warns Sky News military analyst Michael Clarke. "Any military mission, any bombing of Iran, could be counterproductive. People could rally under the national flag because they don't want to be attacked by a foreign power."
Some analysts say Trump has found childlike joy in blitzkriegs without much risk, such as the one in Venezuela. So he doesn't have to send our boys in grueling military missions, and can rebuild his faltering popularity at home. A lot of pizza could be ordered at the Pentagon in the coming days.
